Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

pawlala

wakeupalarm wrote: »

How long do laptops last on average? Those with existing laptops, how old are the ones you are replacing today? 3, 5, 7 years or even older?

My Advent is into its 7th year, and I put that down to the cooler pad that is constantly stuck to it and the fan keeping the area cool.

JDPower

stinky_daddy wrote: »

http:// http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Search/searchTerms/1092952.htm

Argos Toshiba i3 - any thoughts?

Your link is broken.

pawlala wrote: »

My Advent is into its 7th year, and I put that down to the cooler pad that is constantly stuck to it and the fan keeping the area cool.

Same here. My first laptop had issues with overheating as it got older and started shutting down if it did anything strenuous, so had to get a cooling pad just to keep it working. So the laptop that replaced that was kept permanently on a cooling pad (not always turned on, just sat on it for more airflow under it, and turned on during heavy use and/or hot weather). That laptop lasted me 7 years of daily use, and still works now, was only replaced as I needed an upgrade. That upgrade is also now sat permanently on a cooling pad too and will hopefull last just as long

Torkijo

wakeupalarm wrote: »

How long do laptops last on average? Those with existing laptops, how old are the ones you are replacing today? 3, 5, 7 years or even older?

Our 5 1/2 year old Dell is beginning to play up -should get another year or two out of it by cleaning down and removing unused bloatware

grumpycrab

i5 15" Acer. £330 @ArgosEbay
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/acer-aspire-laptop-e1-571-329-99-argos-ebay-1808432

mwaheedf

acer-aspire-e1-570-15.6 -£380

or

hp-pavilion-15-n097ea-15.6 - £430

is the extra £50 worth it?? I only need it for basic everyday use. Office and the net. couldnt post links as im a new user but it is from PC World

Thanks

babymoneyblagger

Son wants a 15 inch laptop with i3 to do college work so must have windows 8 too, on a very cheap budget as he would need to get office or student office too, any recommendations please?

ConsumerWarrior

I just got a very nice old school IBM ThinkPad T43 with just 60GB hard drive and 512Mb ram , Wi-Fi & XP Pro with MS Office....lol for £49 Ebay. Its a very solid unit designed for heavy office and industry work.
I spent £12 on a new battery and £10 on 2GB ram. (all via Ebay).
Its now a very workable machine for basic docs & surfing the Interweb.
IBM have a Restore & Recovery feature built in and was able to straighten it out to as new Factory standard then used the Lenovo update system to bring it up to date.
The Hard drive is small but I use extenal USB storage anyway. (2TB)

JDPower

ConsumerWarrior wrote: »

Its now a very workable machine for basic docs & surfing the Interweb

I would suggest it's really not given XP (and IE8, the newest version XP runs) is no longer receiving any security updates as of a month ago so browsing the net with XP will increasingly become a case of Russian roulette.

grumpycrab

JDPower wrote: »

(and IE8 [is not a good idea], the newest version that XP runs)

Use Chrome then. But I've seen a few (old) computers choking on Chrome recently. If so, try Firefox...

JDPower

grumpycrab wrote: »

Use Chrome then. But I've seen a few (old) computers choking on Chrome recently. If so, try Firefox...

I wasn't suggesting anyone would actually still be using IE (no one does do they lol), but you don't have to use IE for an IE vulnerability to cause an issue thanks to it being so integrated into Windows. Admittedly it's less likely than if you use it to browse with but still one more potential vulnerability to add to the XP situation.